No special teacher for disabled kids

As per a status report the government submitted to the Delhi High Court there are a total of 10,065 children studying in Director of Education run schools identified as “children with special needs”. However, there is no teacher to understand their needs.

Neither the 650 Delhi government schools nor 1,800 MCD schools ever thought of appointing teachers trained to handle disabled students. According to a report, on December 26 last year, the Delhi government advertised the posts of ‘special educators’, but till date not a single teacher has been appointed.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice A P Shah observed, “Not a single educator, not a single facility is in place for disabled students, leave alone any infrastructure in these schools. We have to start from scratch.”

A proposal to train 51,000 teachers in inclusive education sensitizing them about problems such children encounter is pending with the government for implementation.

Senior government counsel Najmi Waziri submitted, “To begin with, 50 special educators or resource persons are being recruited. Scrutiny of the applications received and the constitution of the interview board is already complete. Interviews were postponed owing to the Lok Sabha elections and the implementation of the Model Code of Conduct”.